adding to the roster

I fell in love with another grey mare.
Because that's totally unexpected...

My "horses I have available to ride" got expanded by one today when I rode Stephanie's new mare Kasha on our training ride. This mare is awesome...I cannot wait to ride her at Prescott. "Kash" (pronounced more like "kosh" versus "cash") comes out of a show/arena training background, so just my kind of horse. I mean, we're blasting along up a sand wash at a fast canter, and she's offering up flying lead changes around the turns.

Love, love, love.

At least everyone else's horses have good manes.
Makes it easier to ignore the pony's pitiful one.

Looks like I'll get the chance to ride her one of the days of Prescott next month.

Liking the camera theme of "Kash ears"

And I'm even further convinced of the conspiracy to get me to ride large horses, since she's somewhere around 15-15.1hh.  She doesn't look that big, even when you're standing next to her, since she's so well balanced and put together...but reaching for that stirrup on a flat mount, you know exactly how tall she really is. But I did flat-mount her.

Very well-trained, but still "trail green" and has to look at
things like dead cactus and downed logs. And unexpected
picnic tables and random benches in the middle of nowhere.

We did about 10 miles today, trotting and cantering whenever we could to meet our time deadline. I did a lousy job of keeping track, but I think we were done in about an hour and half, possibly less. Tons of fun, though, and this mare is solid. Completely trustworthy and I felt totally comfortable jumping on her back and asking for a speed workout. 

Definitely the kind of horse I like to ride: Super-responsive to rein and leg, maybe needs a little bit of support along the trail learning curve as she figured out things like uneven footing, rocks, and hills...but that makes me feel like an active, engaged rider...and teaching trail savvy is way easier (at least for me) than trying to teach a died-in-the-wool, old-time endurance horse how to leg-yield. But that's just me and my preference. :) Guess the old show ring is never too far away...